


Esoteric Implications of The Babadook

by Temporarily



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst, Cartman doing a selfless act is just another one of those unsolvable mysteries of the universe, Dont ask why, Drama, Eric Cartman Being Eric Cartman, Except maybe a little bit nicer, Fluff, Friendship, Halloween, Kenny has to deal with too much shit, Movie Night, Old School South Park, Short & Sweet, Stan and Kyle are still Super Best Friends, The Babadook - Freeform, Unintended Shippy Vibes, horror movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 02:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporarily/pseuds/Temporarily
Summary: “October in South Park meant decaying leaves, indecisive slush, and horror movie marathons in Cartman’s basement.” In which the main four watch the Babadook, Kenny flips out, and they're all still assholes but also surprisingly supportive friends. Dramatic fluff. Shippy vibes. Cute kids.





	Esoteric Implications of The Babadook

October in South Park meant decaying leaves, indecisive slush, and horror movie marathons in Cartman’s basement. With the invention of Netflix, such marathons were easier to execute than they had ever been in generations past. On this particular Friday night Stan chose the movie, much to everyone’s eventual regret. 

“Hey look, it’s that Babadook movie that came out last year.”

“I remember that! The PTA got all obsessive about it after Bradley Biggle had horrible nightmares from seeing the commercials and banned any of us from watching it.” 

“As I seem to recall Kahl, your mother led the charge against that movie during one of her monthly Bitch Tirades.” 

“Shut UP Fatass, no one cares what you, ‘recaaaahl.’” The mocking mimicry of Cartman's intonation was scathing, and flawless. 

“Mmm mmm mph mm-mm m-mph?” 

“FUCK no Keeny, we're not watching any stupid-ass Babadook movies! The trailer for it was lame as hell, there wasn't even any blood or guts and shit!”

“So? It can’t be lamer than  _Rubber_ , which was YOUR choice last week!”

“You weren’t supposed to take that movie seriously Kahl! There’s this thing called ironic appreciation, and if you were  _cool_ instead of being a rotten dirty-ass mongrel Jew then you would understand—EY!!!Who said you could turn that movie on Stanley?!” 

“Past experience. If I don’t pick something now you and Kyle will keep arguing all night. So shut up Cartman.”

“Yeah, shut up Fatass!”

“Mm-mm mph mump.”

“UGH. I swear, I fucking hate you guys.”

They sat, Stan at one end of the couch, Kyle in the middle, and Cartman on the other side, hogging all the snacks. Kenny sprawled on his stomach on the floor, idly kicking his legs in the air. All were awash in the sallow blue glow of the television screen. 

“…Dude, this kid is pretty fucking cool for like, a first grader. I wish I could make my own weapons.”

“You should give it a try. Just steal your dad’s tools and stuff, he never uses that shit anyways. I bet you could figure it out.” 

“Mmm mph mm mmm mph!” That was Kenny reminding them about what had happened the last time they’d played with weapons, but they selectively ignored him. Weapons were cooler than safety any day. The first grader in the movie proved it.

Ah, Netflix. The true educator of many a child. 

Throughout the entire film, they never screamed. The Babadook wasn’t that kind of movie, and it wasn’t that kind of monster. It inspired fear through slow build suspense, winding your nerves tighter and tighter until you couldn’t help but tremble, glancing around at the darkest corners of the room with apprehension whenever your attention wasn’t riveted to the screen.

Stan shifted on the couch, cleared his throat, and whispered, “H- hey, Kyle?” Kyle nodded, too transfixed by the events transpiring on-screen to respond verbally. “I was, um, wondering… I mean… this is stupid and it’s probably gonna make me sound like a complete wimp, but—”

“It’s fine Stan.” The dark-haired boy leaned across the couch against his super best friend's side, clutching his arm tight enough to bruise. Kyle tore his eyes away from the movie long enough to give him an amused glance. 

“Don’t worry Stan, I’ll protect you,” he quipped with heaping sarcasm, parodying a similar promise that had just been made on-screen. Such promises tended to be a lot cheesier without an ominous soundtrack behind them.

“Y-yeah right! More like I'll protect you from the… fucking… evil, dark... freaky...”

“Oh my God, you can’t even say it!”

“Shut up!” Stan hissed. “You’re shaking just as much as I am.” And indeed, Kyle was, if not more. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he sighed, doing a far better job of hiding his abject terror. “Get over here.” The redhead tucked his friend under his arm, which ultimately evolved into both of them clinging to one another as the film progressed. Cartman chanced to look their way, and he burst into abrasive laughter. 

“Oh my god, you guys are such pussies!”

“SHUT UP CARTMAN!” Kyle shrieked. 

“Gaaaaaayyyy!” From his place on the floor, Kenny pushed his hood back and shook out his hair. Normally he’d be all for keeping it down no matter the circumstances, but... He didn’t like the way it was obstructing his peripheral vision. There were too many shadows that needed to be watched.

“All in favor of using Cartman as a human shield if anything attacks us, say Aye.”

“Aye!”

“Aye.”

“EY!” With a near-unanimous vote, Kenny stood and started squeezing his way between their designated shield and the couch cushions. “Ey, EY, KEENY! What the hell do you think you’re doing, you stinking piece of—”

“Move over Fatass, or I’m sitting on you.”

 _“_ _Nyeeeeeeeehhh_ _!”_ Within five minutes all four of the boys were an equally shivering, clingy mess. 

When the movie was finished, adequate words took a while to sink in. 

“Psht! What’d I tell you guys?  _Laaaame_ _!”_

“I-it, it really wasn’t  _that_ scary.” 

“Ye-y-y-yeah! Totally!” 

Kenny burst into tears. 

“Kenny, open the door!!!” Stan ordered with a BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! “Let us in!” The wailing in Cartman’s bathroom increased in volume.

“Dude, using the catchphrase of the monster from the movie we just watched? Not the best idea.”

“Shit, you’re right...  _Please_ let us in Kenny!” BANG BANG BANG!

“Seriously Stan?”

“Well what else am I supposed to say?!”

“Oh, my gawd, just leave him you guys,” Cartman drawled from where he had dramatically collapsed of boredom against the wall. “If Kenny wants to be a fucking girl about this stupid movie, let him! As long as he’s out of my bathroom before my nightly shit, of course.”

“Shove off, you insensitive lump of lard!” Kyle snapped. “I’m actually really worried about him, Kenny never cries!” BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

“Well, there was that time Cartman stole all the skin off the Kentucky Fried Chicken, but that was completely understandable.”

“KENNY OPEN THIS DOOR!!!” BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG---

 _“STOP IT! JUST FUCKING STOP!”_  Kyle immediately ceased abusing the bathroom door with his incessant pounding. He looked somewhat guilty but mostly distraught as Kenny’s choked, muffled sobs continued. Cartman groaned, thoroughly done with this spectacle.

“What do I do?!” the redhead hissed. Stan elbowed him out of the way. 

“Let me try.” He knelt by the door, and tried to shove as much concentrated empathy through its crack as he could. “...Hey, Ken? We just wanna know what’s wrong. Please come out and talk to us.” Kenny’s sniffles subsided a little, but he stayed silent. He knew that these three could never understand his fears. “You don’t have to be scared Kenny, the Babadook is just a made-up creature. There’s no way it could hurt you.” That, that was too much. The door opened, revealing the immortal kid in all his tear-stained, messy-haired, pink-faced glory with clenched fists.

_“Don’t say that!”_

“What?”

“The more you deny it the stronger it grows!” he quoted. 

“That was just a clever scare-tactic used by the directors to freak you out by making you question your own reality,” Kyle explained with his best exasperated voice of reason. “And it’s working way too well!”

“WE LIVE IN SOUTH PARK KYLE!” Kenny howled. “If underwear gnomes and Jackovasaurs and Pinkeye outbreaks and hell-demons and  _that fucking_ _spookyfish_ were all real, would it really be that surprising if the Babadook, or something like it, attacked us!?!” All of the boys shared a moment of silence in which they contemplated exactly how fucked up their lives were, and how much more terrifying it had the potential to get. Cartman in particular looked extra pasty.

“...Holy shit you’re right.”

“NOPE!” Stan declared. “No no no nope we are NOT going there!”

“So, we’ll protect our sanity with the power of stubborn avoidance mentality.” Cartman nodded thoughtfully. “I like the way you think Stan.”

“Well, I was going to say we shouldn’t worry about something before it becomes an actual problem, but sure. The point is: You’re upset because you think the Babadook will get you, right Kenny?”

“N-no... not exactly.”

“Then what is it?” The blond scrubbed some of his tears away, sniffled, and stared at the ground. 

How could he explain it to them? He didn’t fear his own death. Hell, he wouldn’t even mind all that much if something possessed one of his friends and they were responsible for killing him. They’d already been responsible for his demise, directly or indirectly, several times. (Attacked with a chainsaw by Kyle, crushed by Cartman and killed at his amusement park, bitten by Stan’s dog.) But he tried not to dwell on how likely that kind of scenario was at this time of year. 

“If—if the Babadook got  _me,_  made me go crazy, if it made me hurt one of you guys, or if I killed Karen—” His voice broke and he blinked back more tears. “It would be  _permanent!!!”_

“Um, yeah...” Stan mumbled, clearly not understanding why this line of thought was affecting the boy in the orange parka so much. “Death is kind of a permanent thing?” They didn’t get it.  _He couldn’t die._ They didn’t understand the special sort of hell it would be for him, to fall prey to the Babadook, or a parasitic brain worm, or whatever new horror came to South Park next week, and start a vicious cycle. Kill a friend, die, come back, kill again, die, come back. For  _eternity_. Until there was no one left. The possibility was remote, but still capable of happening. And to Kenny, that was more terrifying than any dumb movie. 

He slid down the doorframe, curled into a ball, and decided to ignore everything and everyone until it all went away. 

Kyle put a hand on Stan’s shoulder and told him, “I don’t think talking is working.” He crouched down beside his friend, eyes level. “Hey Kenny? We can leave you alone if you like, but...do you want a hug instead?” Well... maybe he wouldn’t ignore this. He reached out wordlessly, so Kyle gathered him up in his lap and wrapped his arms around his waist, breathing with steady intent.

Kyle gave good hugs. Cartman was the cuddliest, but he was liable to turn around and fart on any gesture of emotional vulnerability you presented. Stan was good at hugs too, but he was less likely to offer them than Kyle. Stan preferred to skip over messy emotions and fix the source of them whenever possible, or best yet, ignore the entire problem.

But Kenny appreciated the attempt he was making, because Stan was on the floor now too, rubbing his back and muttering things like, “It’s okay dude, you’re good. Just breathe.” 

“I-I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you guys...” the poor boy muttered, beginning to calm down. “It’s stupid. I’m probably overreacting.”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to explain things Ken.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it man, sometimes you just feel things that you can’t explain. Like Kyle’s irrational hatred towards pee and bananas.”

“Okay FIRST OF ALL, it is not irrational, and second of all,  _did you have to bring that up Stan?!_ ”

Stan was not given any time to cobble a response together that wouldn’t invoke more of his super best friend’s ire. There was a loud WHUMP as a plastic bag filled with lots of small crinkly items was dropped on the floor. Kenny looked up—he hadn’t even noticed that Cartman had left to get... What looked like more snacks? Kenny should have expected that. He probably brought popcorn to watch the drama.

Cartman pointed at the bag and ordered him to, “Eat that. Sugar makes you feel better.” Kenny cautiously opened the bag and found a shit ton of mid-October Halloween candy. He immediately went for the Reese’s PeanutButter Cups and the Butterfingers, hoarding them in a little pile. Stan eyed the bag, internally debating his chances were of a Hersheys or two. “Don’t even think about it Stan! This is for Keeny only. Since my dumb bitch of a mother went and got WAY too much candy, I can afford to be charitable to the starving trailer trash.” 

“God  _damn it CARTMAN--_ ”

“No, Kyle!” Stan delayed the redhead from blowing up at the offensive comment. “We can’t insult him right now, we need to use positive reinforcement.”

_“What?”_

“It’s like, the same thing as what you use to train a dog! Cartman did something nice. Even if he said something mean when he did it, we still need to encourage him to do nice things in the future.”

“Oh hey, you might be onto something Stan! Good boy Cartman! Now sit!”

“FUCK YOU KAHL YOU STUPID JEW YOU THINK YOU CAN FUCKING BOSS ME AROUND I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL SHOW YOU---” Kenny laughed into his candy bar at the sheer absurdity of their normal, which caused Cartman to look vaguely smug while he tiraded and Stan and Kyle taunted him with commands. 

Yes, this was South Park, and people died. Kenny McCormick most frequently of all. This was South Park, and there were such things as monsters. Most of the monsters were human. Impossible things happened—but never the good impossible, only the hilarious and heartbreakingly awful. If any decent therapist were to come to town, they would probably conclude that everyone ought to be irreversibly traumatized. But with these dumbnuts around, Kenny could probably get through it. 

Maybe one day, they would no longer care. They would all be too worn down and sick of this town to bother with loyalty, and what little niceness they had left would get squeezed out of them, slowly, until they were miniature versions of all the adults here. But Kenny would do his best to make sure that day stayed far off. He liked these movie nights, this light-hearted group drama, these stupid moments. Moments where they were all sitting on the ground outside Eric’s bathroom door sharing candy and screaming at each other. Kenny figured he must be doing pretty alright, with friends like these. 

His life, or lack of it, may be unpredictable. But he’d do his best to stick around. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was definitely going for more of an Old School South Park vibe with this. I think if it were more recent, I would have included Butters. Which would have been REALLY cute, if he was being niceguy Butters instead of asshole Butters. But I only realized that AFTER I’d finished writing it. Oh well. The others did alright. Kenny deserves their appreciation and attention. 
> 
> Pray for these kiddos in Season 22, let Stan be okay, and Happy Hackin Halloween!


End file.
